NID plans to create own fund, eyes self reliance over 3 years

The National Institute of Design (NID) aims to be self reliant in the next three years.

The institute, working under the aegis of the Union ministry of commerce and industries, plans to create a fund of its own to meet its expenses.

"We are talking with the industry and our alumni for contributions to the fund," Darlie O Koshy, executive director, NID, said on Monday.

The institute receives an annual grant of around Rs 10 crore from the central government for planned expenditure and around Rs 50 lakh for non-planned expenditure.

At present, the institute has a purpose-based fund of around Rs 12.56 crore, of which Rs 4.77 crore including the interest was given by the Ford Foundation.

The remaining fund is raised by way of consultancy services and various industry programmes. The institute raises around Rs 3.53 crore a year through course fees.

The institute derives around one-third of its revenue from students, one-third from industry sources and one-third from the government.

The institute is looking at increasing admission of foreign students and enhancing its consultancy services and industry programmes to generate more revenue.

The institute has earned over Rs 10 crore in 2003-04 through design and consultancy services. The institute has increased tuition fees by over 10 per cent for the post-graduate and under-graduate courses.

At present, the fees ranges between Rs 80,000 and Rs 90,000 a year. The fees will be around Rs 1.20 lakh a year from the next academic session. Tuition fees for students from Saarc countries is $3000 and for students from all other countries is $9000. Other fees and charges are as applicable to Indian students.

Those students whose parents or guardians are not Indian citizens will have to pay tuition fees as applicable to students from Saarc countries.

The institute plans to set up a design and research centre at Bangalore and develop its campus at Gandhinagar. NID will invest Rs 20 crore on the Bangalore and Gandhinagar projects.

"In the first phase, the activities of the centre will include research and development in industrial design, communication and technology for the masses, applied research in animation and game design," Koshy said.

The Planning Commission has approved the proposal for construction of NID's design and research Centre at in Bangalore at an outlay of Rs 5 crore in a collaborative venture with the department of industrial policy and promotion and department of information technology.

The institute is setting up its extension campus at Gandhinagar. The Rs 15 crore master plan of the extension PG campus at Gandhinagar will be implemented in two to three phases.

The new campus is expected to be fully operational in the next two years. It will be used as a transit campus from this academic session.

"The new campus will focus on post graduate programmes and research. The campus at Paldi would become an under graduate campus," Koshy said.

The new campus will have post graduate programmes in software and user interface design, information and digital design, new media design and graphic design.